Microsoft Veterans Secure Major Backing to Build Next-Generation Data Systems

2026-11-11 companies

San Francisco, Wednesday, 11 November 2026.
Edelbyte raised $70 million at a $500 million valuation, deploying architecture that handles ten times more automated queries within existing enterprise budgets than legacy platforms.

Four Ex-Microsoft Engineers Raise $70 Million for AI-Ready Data Platform

On 10 November 2026, Edelbyte emerged from stealth mode after securing a combined $70 million in seed and Series A financing led by Sequoia Capital and Quiet Capital, with participation from Greenoaks and Swish Ventures [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The four co-founders—Avner Aharoni (CEO), Evgeney Ryzhyk (CTO), Alexander Sloutsky (VP of Engineering), and Yoni Leibowitz (VP of Platform Engineering)—all spent over a decade at Microsoft building the Azure Kusto engine (Azure Data Explorer) before launching their venture in November 2025 [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Their unified data platform is engineered to handle the explosive query volumes generated by AI agents, offering millisecond response times on petabyte-scale datasets while reducing platform costs by up to 90% compared with legacy systems such as Snowflake and Databricks [1][2][3][4][5][6].

A $300 Billion Market in the Crosshairs

Edelbyte’s timing reflects surging venture appetite for foundational infrastructure capable of supporting next-generation enterprise analytics and AI workloads. Market estimates project the global big data analytics market to expand from approximately $300 billion in 2026 to $516 billion by 2031, growing at a compound annual rate near 9% [3][5][6]. Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky emphasized that modern applications demand data infrastructure that can “expand what builders can create while making the economics and operations work at scale,” positioning Edelbyte as a potential platform leader for the AI era [1][5]. The startup already serves multiple Fortune 500 clients and maintains design partnerships with four additional enterprises in production environments [1][2][3][4][5][6].

Architecture Built for AI Queries

Edelbyte’s proprietary engine combines traditional analytics, text search, spatial queries, and vector processing into a single unified system deployable across public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises environments [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Its query-federation architecture allows petabyte-scale datasets to be queried at millisecond latency while compressing raw data storage by up to 50% relative to legacy formats, delivering 10× higher query throughput within the same infrastructure budget [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The company’s pricing model charges for compute in vCore-hours and storage in GB-months, with network and I/O operations billed separately to mirror underlying cloud costs [6]. Security certifications include SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001, alongside encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access control, and single sign-on via SAML and OIDC [6].

Valuation and Funding Breakdown

Edelbyte’s $70 million round comprised a $25 million seed led by Sequoia with participation from Greenoaks and Swish Ventures, followed by a $45 million Series A led by Quiet Capital, with additional support from QP Ventures, Startpoint Capital, and Cerca Partners [2][3][5][6]. This financing values the company at $500 million, reflecting rapid traction within its first year of operation [2][3][5][6]. According to PitchBook data, Vine Ventures closed a $236 million third fund on 9 November 2026, underscoring continued strong LP appetite for Israeli-founded infrastructure plays [7].

Sources

Venture capital Data infrastructure